


Relative Dimensions

by whiteraven1606



Series: Loosely Connected [17]
Category: Dredd (2012), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Crossover, Dimension Travel, Gen, Mutant Powers, Protectiveness, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 18:38:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/776705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiteraven1606/pseuds/whiteraven1606
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hulk falls through a portal into Judge Dredd's world. Tony, of course, has to follow. Iron Man armor and all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Relative Dimensions

**Author's Note:**

> I watched the Dredd movie and this happened. Yes, I know I like crossovers far too much. I think you can read it without having seen the movie, I tried not to reference much in Dredd's world.

****

Judge Dredd lead his latest rookie up the block's stairs slowly. The perps were holed up somewhere on the next level. As they made the landing, Dredd motioned for the rookie to wait because something was wrong.

Tilting his head, Dredd tried to place the feeling. It wasn't quite the way Anderson felt when she poked around in his head, but it was a feeling just wrong enough to make him think twice about proceeding from their current approach.

Just as Dredd decided to backtrack and try a different route the world broke open. Dredd threw himself to one side as a mass of green with a flash of purple slid past him from out of literally nowhere. The rookie yelped and dove down the stairs.

The mass of green resolved itself into some sort of mutant the likes of which Dredd had not seen before. The mutant double-blinked at him and then frowned as the rookie unloaded an entire clip of rapid fire into the mutant's back.

"Cease fire, rookie!" Dredd's frown deepened as he heard the rookie call for Hi-Ex. The mutant's eyebrows went up and then Dredd was enveloped in the mutant's arms as the Hi-Ex round exploded against the mutant's back.

The mutant turned and roared at the rookie, even as Dredd yelled again for him to cease fire. The mutant turned back around and stared down at Dredd.

"Army?"

Dredd looked up at him. "No. I'm Judge Dredd."

The mutant frowned and huffed as he looked around them. "Where is?"

Dredd frowned deeper. "Sternhammer Block. Who are you?"

Another blink and then a growl in the direction of the rookie. "Hulk. Not know? Everyone know Hulk."

Dredd shook his head. "Not everyone." He brought his hand up and contacted Control. "Control, I need Judge Anderson at my GPS."

"Copy that. Are you under fire, Judge?"

"Negative. I need Anderson's skills."

"Understood. Judge Anderson is enroute."

Dredd gestured towards the rookie. "I need to talk to my rookie. Stay here."

Hulk snorted and poked at the stairs with his massive finger. "Can sit?"

Dredd started down the stairs to find the rookie. "Yeah."

****

Judge Anderson was on a simple drugs bust. Well, everything seemed simple after the mess that had been her final assessment before becoming a full-fledged Judge. When Control called to tell her Dredd was asking for her, Anderson lifted her eyebrows. "Copy that. Is he under fire?"

"Negative. He requested you by name, Judge."

Anderson quickly cuffed her last perp. "I need a meat wagon to my current GPS, four for the iso-cubes. I'm enroute to Judge Dredd's current GPS."

She was hurrying to her Lawmaster before Control had a chance to acknowledge. The roads to Sternhammer Block were relatively clear. She kept a quick pace, no running, just quicker than normal, as she headed into the Block. She went up the stairs and found Dredd calmly dressing down a rookie. "Sir?"

Dredd turned his head towards her and jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the stairs behind him. "Go talk to him. Says his name is Hulk." 

"Alright." Anderson glanced at the rookie as she went on up the stairs. He wasn't going to get a Pass. She listened to Dredd order the rookie back to the Hall of Justice as she hit the top of the stairs. She froze as soon as she caught sight of the Hulk. "Oh."

"Army?"

Anderson pulled her helmet off. "Not Army. I'm a Judge."

The big green face broke into a grin. "Judge Dredd."

"Yeah. I'm Judge Anderson." She moved up a step and looked him over. "Hulk?"

"Yes." The Hulk grinned wide. "Everyone knows." He frowned. "Not Judge Dredd. He not know."

"Uh. Well, I didn't know until Dredd told me." Anderson eased her power out to touch his mind.

He jerked and huffed. "No ask first?"

Anderson blinked. "Uhhh...People usually can't tell when I read their minds."

"Hulk know. Itches." Hulk looked over his shoulder at the landing behind him. He ducked down just as a flash of light hit.

Anderson had Dredd behind her in the instant it took for the light to spit out a gold and red robot. 

"That's interesting."

She bit her lip so she wouldn't mention what he'd thought in his head. The robot wasn't a robot as Anderson got a wash of equations and worry. "It has a person in it."

The armor hovered and then landed between them and the Hulk. "You alright, Big Guy?"

Hulk smiled and pointed to her and Dredd. "Is not Army. Judge Dredd. Judge Ander-son."

The armor turned, clomping sounds echoing slightly in the stairwell. "Well, alright. That's...awesome." The armor face retracted and underneath was a face of a man. "Hi. It's a bit complicated." He turned back to the Hulk. "Can I have Bruce or Banner, please?"

Hulk glared. "Annoying Judge try hurt Hulk. No like."

Dredd made a small dip motion with his head. "It won't happen again. The rookie reacted prematurely."

Hulk huffed and rubbed his hand on the back of his head. "Boom."

Dredd nodded. "Hi-Ex should have blown you apart."

The man in the armor's eyebrows went up. "Hi-Ex? High explosive, I take it. Yeah, Hulk doesn't exactly take damage like normal people." He turned back to the Hulk. "Please? I'll talk Bruce into giving up his next moo-ve night to you."

Hulk hunched down. "No Bruce shirt."

The armor whirred as the man made a so-so motion with his hand. "I've got his glasses this time. No clothes, it's Natasha's turn for that."

With a grunt, Hulk flopped backwards and Anderson read an increase in worry from the man as Hulk started to _change_.

Dredd's internal control clamped tight, blotting out everything else in his head as the Hulk's body starting shifting.

****

Tony was going to break every bone in Dr. Strange's body at the first opportunity. The alternate reality they were had a way too high level of residual radiation. Like post-nuclear war levels. Tony wanted out of there, but the portal back wasn't something he was going to try to shove Hulk through.

Watching it swallow Hulk the first time around had been bad enough.

Hulk transformed and Banner opened his eyes.

Tony didn't know weither to be happy or not. "Hey, Banner."

"This is the weirdest world I think I've ever woken up in."

Tony grinned. "Beats that villain with the zombie dogs."

Banner shook his head. "No, not really. The radiation level smells high."

"You can smell it? No, no, don't answer that. I shouldn't be surprised at what you can smell." Tony turned back towards the Judges. "In case you haven't figured it out, we aren't from around here."

The pretty female cocked her head. "No, you really aren't."

The one with the helmet still on turned to look at the female. "Anderson?"

Anderson shrugged. "He doesn't know what a Judge is, Dredd."

Dredd looked at them. "Can you get home?"

Tony shrugged. "Have to wait a couple of hours. Best guess is going through too soon will be bad for us. I'm Tony Stark." He looked expectantly between the two of them. "And that doesn't mean a thing to either of you, does it. Huh. That's...different."

Banner frowned at Anderson. "Could you rein that in? I don't like you walking around Tony's head any more than Hulk's mind."

Tony frowned. "What? Like a telepath?"

Anderson looked a little apprensive. "I'm a psychic."

"That's awesome. Just ask first, yeah?"

"Okay." Anderson glanced at Dredd who had his head tilted at the angle that she associated with him being completely confused. "Hulk could feel me touching his mind."

Dredd nodded. "Do you have to wait here? There's still perps on the next level up."

Tony glanced up. "It doesn't matter where we are. I don't think, at least." He squinted at them. "You want help? That's what we do in our world. Stopping bad things from happening."

Anderson could see Dredd thinking about it. "Can that armor stop high velocity rounds?"

With a grin, Tony snapped the face plate down. "Oh, yeah."

Banner rolled his eyes. "Let him go first."

Dredd pointed at Tony. "No killing. They haven't done anything that's a lethal offense yet."

"Lethal offense? Oookay, no problem." The armor turned. "Which way?"

Dredd huffed and headed up the stairs.

Anderson followed and Banner fell in behind her. She turned towards him as they crossed the landing. "You aren't going to wait here?"

Banner shrugged his bare shoulders. "I'm safer than you are wherever I am."

She didn't think so, except...he did have a whole other form that evidently had taken a Hi-Ex hit, so maybe she shouldn't question it. "Just stay in the hallway when we go in, okay?" 

"Sure." 

****

Tony didn't like that they needed to wait for the machine to recharge before they could go home. Add to that Tony was thinking there might be a time difference involved. Hulk hadn't been too concerned about no Team, which for Hulk included Coulson. While it was nice he'd been calm, it worried Tony. Time wasn't a concept Hulk dealt with with any precession. 

The tiny explosive Dredd attached to the door popped quite nicely. Tony was going to have to remember get a look at one, it looked small enough to fly on one of Clint's arrows. 

As the door flew out of the way, Tony stepped right into the doorway and used his repulsers to push back the first two criminals. Tony didn't have JARVIS, but there weren't that many targets. Dredd and Anderson had come in right behind him, shooting anything that held a weapon pointed in their direction.

The few remaining criminals were cuffed and Anderson called for something named a meat wagon. Tony grimaced since no one could see him make the face with his armor closed up. Anderson glanced up as Banner stuck his head in the doorway.

"Shooting over with?"

Dredd pushed one of the criminals down to his knees. "We're through."

Banner stepped on into the room. "Everyone that matters didn't get shot, right?"

Tony flipped up his faceplate. "We're good."

"Tony, how long are we waiting for?"

Tony sighed. "It was eight hours before we could try sending someone. We had a lengthy argument over sending me, but I've got the suit and no one was sure Hulk was still alive."

"Hours?" Banner turned towards Dredd, whose head had snapped up. "Was it hours? Hulk's time sense isn't reliable."

Dredd's frown deepened. "It was less than thirty minutes."

Tony's eyebrows rose. "Shit."

****

Anderson listened to Dredd think about pacing, control the impulse, think about it, and control the impulse again, round and round. The landing was still closed to citizens because Tony wasn't sure if they'd be caught up in the portal if it opened again. He'd decided they'd better be in the same spot as before, just in case.

Banner was watching her and Anderson felt exposed in a way that being a mutant usually didn't get her. He could tell she was listening to Dredd. Dredd himself wasn't certain, he just assumed she couldn't shut him out with them so close, and went on about his thinking without changing how he thought.

It was novel to have someone that knew what she could do and still was just himself instead of worrying about what she'd find or hear from him. It was part of why she'd come to like Dredd like the brother she'd never had.

Banner didn't have any animosity about her, he was more about privacy than anything against her being a mutant. Tony's equations, worries, and theories just flowed out. Anderson found that Banner didn't care if she listened to the broadcast thoughts.

She settled onto a bench at the edge of the landing as the wait hit the hour mark. "What happens if they can't get it to open?"

Tony's flash of absolute fear was gone in a moment, replaced by fierce determination, and the feeling that his teammates would do everything they could. "They'll get it."

Banner snorted. "Tony, you and Bruce are _here_ , not there."

Tony flapped a hand. "Big deal. I'm sure Cap can guilt trip Dr. Strange if nothing else."

"Maybe." Banner cocked his head, just as Dredd turned towards the far wall. Anderson felt something change in the air.

Tony flipped his face plate down. "Looks like that's our ride."

****

Dredd lay on his back, staring at a _clean_ ceiling. Weird. "Anderson?"

Anderson's uniform made noise as she rolled towards him. "Here. Shit, here is not there, sir."

Dredd sat up and stared at the group of...people ranged around them. "Where are we?"

Tony's armor shed right off him and packed itself up tight. "That needs decontaminated, J."

A disembodied voice came from Tony's pocket. "Yes, sir. May I say it is good to have you back."

Tony frowned. "Yeah, about that. How long?" He looked at the man in the business suit.

"Too long. Who are your new friends?"

Dredd stood and pulled Anderson up to her feet. She winced and leaned on his arm for a bare moment before straightening up.

Banner stayed on the ground, sitting where a giant wolf was nuzzling his hair. "Judges Dredd and Anderson. Looked to me like they are the cops of their world."

Anderson was staring around herself with the wide eyed look Dredd only seen on her when she'd tried to read too much too fast from a difficult perp once. 

Dredd turned to Tony. "We can't stay here."

Tony nodded. "Yeah, got it." He looked over the machine in the middle of the room that was smoking. "If it helps at least your world won't think you are missing for too long."

Dredd mentally sighed. "How long?"

Tony kicked the machine. "Uhm, give me an hour to work out how much I've got to fix." He looked at Banner. "Can I have Brucey, please?"

Banner glanced at them. "Sure." He blinked and suddenly the green glowing eyes that Dredd at assumed were due to his mutant status faded into brown and his body language shifted completely.

The new man, blinked again and glanced at them both. "Uh, hi." He waved a little at Anderson and turned towards Tony. "Are you brain damaged?"

"What? I couldn't just leave him there."

"You do know that you should have stayed here and let someone else go through. Thor or Steve would have been fine."

"We didn't know where he'd gone! I'm the best bet for calming him down. He worries more with Steve and don't even get me started on Thor."

Anderson pushed her hair back out of her face. "Wait. How many people are in your body?"

The man accepted a shirt from the redheaded woman, lethally trained, from the way she had assessed them upon arrival. "I'm Bruce. It doesn't really matter."

Anderson did that wincing shrug thing that Dredd knew meant she'd hit something very unpleasant with her ability. "It does. You've got...four, maybe five..." Anderson waved a hand. "Sorry, I know I told Banner I wouldn't poke around."

Bruce shrugged. "You don't seem to have shields."

Dredd carefully watched the rest of the group's reaction to the conversation, but no one seemed either surprised or worried. It was very different than what Dredd would expect from people in his world.

Tony clapped Dredd's nearer shoulder. "Hungry?"

****

Anderson sat down on the couch they'd pointed her and Dredd to and sank into it. Dredd was a mass of control, worry, and a tiny bit of longing. "What is this?" She took the plate from the man who had introduced himself as Agent Coulson.

"Sampling from the Avengers' leftovers. JARVIS will order more of anything you decide you like."

Dredd started at one edge of his plate and ate steadily across.

It shouldn't, but it amused her that he didn't take his helmet off. She'd looked out the huge windows. They certainly weren't on their world. Not a single mega-block in sight. 

Anderson smiled at Coulson. "Thank you."

He dipped his head and disappeared off somewhere with mutterings of paperwork and lists of things to check running through his mind.

The next person to sit down near them wasn't afraid of anything they looked like they could do. "I'm Logan. Wolverine."

Anderson and Dredd looked at each other before looking back at Logan.

"Is that supposed to mean something to us?" Dredd stuffed another spoonful of food into his mouth.

Logan spread his arms out across the back of the couch he was sitting on. "Usually does."

Anderson shrugged. "Sorry. We don't know any of you."

Logan didn't seem to care, he was just curious as to the differences in their worlds. "Stark thinks your world is post-nuclear war era."

Anderson nodded. "We are. You have metal for bones." She could feel it in his thoughts, how his body ached a little where it was regenerating around the joints in a constant struggle with the metal.

Logan shrugged as Dredd turned his head to stare at her. "It can be useful."

She got a mental flash of his claws out and Anderson blinked. "Yes." Dredd kept staring at the side of her head. "Sir?"

He went back to eating. "Anderson, aren't you tired?"

She wasn't tired, which was unusual. "No." She shoveled food into her mouth, expecting the blandness or too hot spices of most block food. Blinking, she looked down at her plate. "What is this?"

Logan grinned. "Hulk calls it hissy chicken."

The redhead appeared and smacked Logan on the arm. "Don't teach them Hulk's names for things. If the science bros can't get them home they'll have to live here." She gracefully slid to the floor at Logan's feet and curled up in a ball. "Orange chicken is the common name."

Anderson took another bite. "It's good."

Dredd could have been staring at the empty plate in his hands, it was hard to tell with the helmet. "What is your name?"

"Natasha." She pointed at the knot of people near the table where Tony and Bruce were working on a model of the portal machine. "The tall one standing near Stark is Captain Steve Rogers. The shorter one with the bare arms is Clint Barton."

Anderson watched the wolf push up against the back of Bruce's legs. "The wolf?"

"That's Fenrir. He's Thor's nephew. Thor is the one with the hammer at his feet."

Dredd frowned a little as the only one she hadn't named took his plate from him. "And you?"

The guy grinned. "I'm currently considered dead, so I don't have a name."

Across the room, Bruce scratched the wolf's ear. "I thought You'd settled on Wayne."

The guy shrugged. "I'm worried it'll get me recognized."

Tony flicked something on the model. "Nah. Everyone _knows_ Bruce Wayne died when Gotham was under Bane. You just happen to look like him."

Anderson looked up as Wayne handed Dredd his plate back, refilled. 

Wayne winked at her. "Just a little too much like him."

"What did you do?" Anderson tried not to wince at the sudden influx of pain from him. "Sorry." She looked down at her food.

He sat down next to Logan and leaned forward to rest his forearms on his knees. "You read minds or emotions or both?"

Anderson glanced at them as she chewed. Beside her, Dredd did that thing he could do where he didn't move, but suddenly you realized just how lethal he could be. She tried to seem alright, because she was, it just was more straight forward than anyone in her world would be about a mutant, without using a slur. Except for Dredd. He'd never seemed to mind her status. "Mostly thoughts. I get emotions if they are tied in really tight to the thought."

Logan tilted his head. "Maybe we should call the Professor. He could give her a rating."

Stark shook his head as he moved something else on the model. "Wouldn't help her. That'd just be a rank against our mutants, not against the ones in her world."

Anderson looked at Dredd, who was eating just as quickly as before. Then, she looked towards Bruce, who was watching her. "I'd still like to know. If it wouldn't be too much trouble."

****

Dredd stuck close to Anderson. He didn't care if these people thought they were involved because of it. They didn't even have Judges, let alone the rules and laws Dredd spent his life enforcing. 

Getting a rank assigned to Anderson didn't seem to involve much. The mutant they called hadn't even needed to come to where they were, in New York according to the AI. Dredd still wasn't sure if the AI was the house or the JARVIS name or all the above. The voice from Tony's phone and the ceiling were the same, so Dredd thought it possible they were the same AI.

Anderson looked a little awe struck when none of the group seemed to mind her being a mutant. As far as Dredd could tell Bruce and Logan were the only mutants in the group and then Bruce had explained that wasn't exactly the right label for him.

Dredd handled it all calmly until they were offered a place to sleep. No sleep machines. The AI, who turned out to be called JARVIS, informed them they didn't have such machines. Dredd had just nodded and sat down near Anderson as she stripped out of her uniform.

She looked at him when she was down to her underwear. "Sir?"

He knew she was making it a question of how he felt about...everything. "I'm fine, Anderson. Get some sleep."

She frowned, but obediently slipped under the soft sheets of the bed. She rolled to face him and Dredd thought he was going to have to fend off questions. Instead she just pulled the covers tight under her chin and blinked at him. "None of them hate mutants."

Dredd had seen it in the way they handled each other, the talking wolf that loved Bruce wholeheartedly, the matter of fact dealing with Anderson, and offering her help learning more about her abilities while they were stuck here. "No, they don't."

She bit her lip. "I still want to go home."

He nodded. "So do I." He patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. "Sleep."

She smiled a little, like she knew he felt awkward trying to comfort her and fell asleep between one breath and the next.

He sat still, happy that she hadn't died in Peach Trees, instead turning out to be a very good Judge, and waited for the news they could go home.

****

Anderson blinked awake and found Dredd sleeping, sitting up beside her, with his helmet still on. Yawning, Anderson patted him on the knee and went looking for a shower. 

She came back out with a towel wrapped around herself, wondering if the people here even knew what a water ration looked like. "Dredd."

His head snapped forward from the loll he'd been in. "Anderson?" He tilted his head when he saw her in wrapped in towels.

"They don't seem to have rations here."

Dredd's mind did that shift she'd only felt when he had to change a fact in his head. Like when he'd realized she wasn't dead like he'd thought in Peach Trees Block. "That's...different."

She smiled. "They could send us back any time. You might want to try it while we have the chance."

He stood up and headed for the bathroom before stopping and turning towards her. "You alright?"

"Yeah, Judge, I'm fine."

His frown was as happy as he ever seemed to get as he turned back towards the bathroom.

****

Tony sighed as the portal closed behind Anderson and Dredd. "I hope they got back to the right place."

Bruce leaned against his shoulder for a moment. "I hope the pointers from Logan's friend helps Anderson."

Tony turned towards him. "Could Hulk really feel her reading his mind?"

Bruce shrugged. "You'd have to ask Banner. Best that I can remember is an explosive round hitting the other guy's back and him knowing that it was a scared kid because the officer, which turned out to be Dredd, was yelling for cease fire."

"Huh." Tony waved his hand through the smoke Dr. Strange's machine was giving off. "Their world was...not great."

Bruce nodded. "Post-nuclear war with survivors."

Tony pulled up the scan of the Judges he'd had JARVIS take. "That little door blowing explosive might be useful."

"Sure, Tony." Bruce patted Fenrir, where he was still sticking to Bruce's back constantly when the Avengers weren't in the middle of a fight.

****

Dredd figured coming out of the portal to a crime in progress was about the sum of his life. Anderson just laughed and then yelled at the perps to surrender.

Dredd called Control to explain their absence of several hours while Anderson covered him and waited so they could clear out the perps together.

Anderson turned towards him. "Welcome home, Judge Dredd."

He checked his ammo. "Yeah."

****

**Author's Note:**

> I've a sort-of a prompt dealing with Fenrir that I'm working out what to write for to go in this series. I'm thinking of having Logan/Steve Rogers as a pairing, but I've not seen it before. Does anyone have an opinion on them as a pairing within this series?
> 
> EDIT: Sorry about this. I was meaning Logan/Steve as a long term relationship, not just an encounter or a single shot for smut, etc. I've been on the fence about Logan/Steve, which is why I was asking what people thought. I write rare pairs and sometimes I wonder if anyone besides me actually ships whatever rare pair it is that is eating my brain this time. I wasn't trying to belittle anything anyone else as written. Everything I've ever read in the Logan/Steve tag is nifty. I just haven't seen what I'd like to read is all.


End file.
